


Dark Reflection

by nirejseki, robininthelabyrinth (nirejseki)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Child Abuse, Dark, Eldritch, Gen, evil twin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 16:49:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19794967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/robininthelabyrinth
Summary: Little Leonard Snart really should have known better.The black river that flows through the heart of Central City never does anything good for anyone.





	Dark Reflection

The black river runs beneath the city, and those who are wise avoid it like death.

Those who are more greedy, and less wise, do not.

And then there are those that have no choice.

No one knows where it comes from, no one knows where it goes: all that anyone knows is that if you have the gift to see your way to the riverbanks, and not everyone does anymore these days, you can find your way to it from wherever you are in the city, find your way to that river that runs beneath the city, the black blood pumping through the rotten heart of the city. 

You can sail it, for a while, if you wish.

You shouldn’t.

The old stories whisper that the black river is a granter of wishes that no one should grant. They whisper that this river gives only what you do not wish to take; that any who drink from its putrid water will become something beyond mankind; that the dead sleep with their eyes awake and aware within its opaque depths, endlessly screaming; that riding along the river will strip your soul away and poison you with its fumes. Feed the river nothing, the old stories warn, for that is all the opening it needs.

Those are the old stories.

The new stories are far more practical. 

No one will chase you on the black river, they counsel. You can escape from any fate you choose if you sail away from it on the black river, they say, omitting the fact that the fate you exchange in its place is generally worse. The black river will make your fortune, and you need only pay the toll of blood to make your passage: your own, or someone else's.

The river’s not picky. 

The new stories are not like the old stories, meant to warn and teach and protect.

The new stories are the stories of the thieves, thieves of lives and property and joy, and with their whispering the black river becomes a river rich with blood and souls.

Leonard Snart, who his father calls Leo, is very young the first time he finds his way to the banks of the river. 

He flees it, of course, even without the aid of any story; the river smells as black as it looks, and only killers fail to notice the stench. 

A small drop lands on his shoe as he runs.

Not much.

But it's enough to drive little Leonard Snart, who his father still then calls Leo, into his first mistake: he tells his father about what he saw.

"The black river," Lewis Snart says, his eyes glowing, his spirit afire with greed. He has been on the river before, Lewis has, sailing away from his fates; he no longer remembers the man he was before that fateful day when he chose escape over justice, the man who joined the police force and loved his wife and looked forward to having children. That man is long gone now, and Lewis does not care: to his mind, the river has given him so much more than what he had.

But he has never been able to find the river by himself enough to use it as he wishes, for the ways were closed to his eyes.

His eyes - but not his son's.

"You've done well, Leo," he says, and his son enjoys the praise that slides into his ears like poison, the chains of his childish love for his father growing all the more tight.

From that point, Lewis Snart knows the way to the river, the black river that promises riches and escape and gives without taking, and his fortunes at last begin to improve - at least, his income does. But the riches he earns slip through his fingers like sand, and he must do more and more, and none of it, he finds, is enough to fill the vacant hole in the center of his heart. 

He grows ever more angry, and wields his temper like a lash, and his son suffers for it.

His son, who walks his father hand-in-hand to the darkness of the riverbank before fleeing back to the safety of the concrete streets and asphalt roads. 

The black river does not take the unwilling, and Lewis Snart forgets to bring his son along with him each time. 

But even the unwilling can be forced. 

Not by the river, no, but by their own hearts; and so it is with little Leonard Snart, whose father calls him Leo, who hates the black river as much as he fears it but who cannot bear to see his father dragged away by men with black eyes who wish to hurt him. 

He comes to the black river, and gives of his own blood for the toll he's only ever heard about, and whispers not a request, but a prayer for safety, sent out to the waters without any hope of response. 

He does not think to specify _whose_ safety. 

He settles back on his feet and closes his eyes and waits for the black river water to seep into his soul and decay it as it has decayed his father's, willing to accept the fate he has cast upon himself.

"Hello, there."

He opens his eyes.

No one is there.

No -

That's not quite right.

He crawls over to the black river and looks down into its surface, looks down at the water suddenly gone startlingly still and quiet, and in that water he sees his own reflection.

His reflection smiles at him.

He's not smiling. 

"Hello, there," he says to his reflection. He should be upset, he thinks to himself, but the thought is as distant as the feeling; his mind is as calm as the surface of the river, smooth and untroubled. 

His reflection smiles wider. "I'm here to help," it says. 

He swallows a little; he is not nervous, exactly, but he knows enough to be wary of strangers. "Who are you?" he asks. 

"I'm your reflection, of course," the reflection says.

He nods. It is good to have confirmation.

"You are not here willingly," the reflection observes. "Born of my streets, you have come to the black river many times, but never before willingly. Why were you never willing?"

"I didn't want to," he says. 

"Why? The river does not take; it only gives."

"I don't wanna get nothing from the river," he tells his reflection. "The river has nothing to give me that I want."

The reflection's eyes narrow, just a little. "You gave your blood and asked for something, remember?"

"I said there's nothing I _want_ ," he says impatiently. "This is something I _need_."

"More than you know, little one," the reflection says. "It is difficult to give gifts to the unwilling, but not impossible, and I do so love giving gifts. Tell me, are you familiar with twins?"

He blinks. "Yes?"

"I'm your twin."

"I thought you said you were my reflection."

"Who says I can't be both?"

"Oh. I mean, I guess.” He doesn’t exactly know how all of this works, all the adults in his life being vague and unhelpful whenever he asks, promising to tell him when he is older. “Be all you can be, right?"

"...right,” the reflection says, but it’s smiling again. “But I need your help, first.”

He nods in agreement.

“Tell me, what type of twin am I?"

"Don't you know who you are?"

"I want you to tell me."

He frowns, thinking. "I mean," he said slowly, "I guess, if you're my twin, then you're probably friendly, and caring, and sociable, and educated, and competent at everything you do."

"Because you are?"

"Don't be silly," he says sternly. "Because I'm _not_. There's always a good twin and a bad twin, right? And since I'm bad, that means you must be the good one."

The reflection's smile has frozen. "Interesting," it says after a while. "Why are you bad?"

"My dad says so," he says, and he is still very young, and thinks that to be enough to make it true. 

"I see," the reflection says. "Interesting. Very interesting, my little unwilling one. One last question."

"Yes?"

"Why did you ask for safety?" it asks. Its eyes shine black like all those in the river. 

"Because that's what I needed," he replies, confused. "My dad -"

"You didn't ask it for your dad. You didn't ask it for anyone at all, actually."

He frowns. That is true. "I don't know, then," he says. "I guess it's because it's what I thought I needed, rather than what I actually needed." He wrinkles his nose. "I guess that means you were right, then, that I asked for something I wanted."

"You know yourself better than most," the reflection says. It sounds pleased. "Go home, my little unwilling one. Go home, and be safe."

And with those words, the river begins to flow again, and his reflection is lost to those churning waters.

Leonard Snart rears his head back, suddenly aware of what he was doing and where, and he clambers to his feet and he runs home as fast as he can.

His father, for whom he had so feared, returns not long after, smiling; the men who had taken him had agreed to give him another chance, and he had plans to take advantage of that.

Leonard Snart looks up at him from where he sits on the couch, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Don't just sit there, Len," Lewis snaps. "Go get me a beer."

Leonard Snart frowns. That's not right. 

His dad always calls him -

Calls him -

Something.

He can't quite remember what. 

"Len!"

"Coming!" he squeaks, leaping to his feet and running to the fridge; he knows better than to tempt his father's anger. 

He runs around much of the rest of that night, helping his father gather the tools to his new plan and seeing him off on his way while quietly thanking his luck that his father didn't seem to want to take him with him.

He goes up to his room and opens the shades to look outside for a moment: his window looks out into an empty yard, but the sky is clear and dark and deep, the sun having gone down hours before.

He looks into the mirror, and he sees his reflection in the glass that through it shows the night sky, and he says, suddenly, harshly, " _Leo_."

His twin smiles, and steps inside.

"Yes," Leo says. "I'm here."

"Why?" Leonard Snart, who was once called Leo and is now called Len, demands, his eyes wide and frightened and brimming with tears. "Why?"

"Because," Leo croons, stepping forward and drawing Len into his arms, "you asked me to."

And he smiles wider, and wider, and wider, until the blackness of the river between his long, needle-sharp fangs is all that Len can see, and the rushing of his blood in his ears is all that he can hear, and Len thinks to himself in despair that he really should've known better than to take what the river gave him.

"My little unwilling one," Leo sings in his ear, drawing him down on the bed. "Who gives of himself, gives and gives and takes only when he must, and even that is meant to give. You're made for me, little Lenny, and I?"

He laughs.

"I'm made for you."

But that's not the worst of it.

The worst of it is - Leo really is the nicer twin.


End file.
